If Only We Heeded TY Danjuma’s Call-George Kushi
Time changes fast and yesterday’s reality continually change. However visionary leaders prognose into the future and prescribe solutions.
Not many years ago ,the sage General,Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma was under attack from myopic political irredentist that saw his call to local people to rise to the moments exigencies of self defense against marauding hordes, itinerant murderers employed by criminally minded politicians to destabilize the country by dislodging native populations from their lands to be replaced by an invading army of nomads. The new method of furtive attacks before the final onslaught was foreseen by the battle tested soldier who then called on locals to arm and resist killer squads that were on the rampage in the northern parts of Nigeria.
Today,the utterance of the revered general has come to be accepted by all right thinking people across the country as the panaecea to the fast deteriorating state of the nation now threatened by lawlessness and imminent free fall to anarchy. If local communities had heeded the generals warning they would not have suffered or fallen victims to the barbarism visited on them by foreign vandals.
Years after the Clarion call to get ready to defend themselves,those that hosted the vandals are now the victims. The North-west,which was the staging ground of “Kare jini biri jini”(the dog and the monkey will bath in blood) is now a battleground.
Not long after General Danjuma’s call for local populations to brace up and defend themselves ,the emir of Muri echoed the same sentiment which followed by other traditional rulers in the area that know where it pinches. A little later others got message and the need to defend themselves instead of relying on state apparatus that respond several hours late,a regular occurence that has attracted suspicion as the complexity of relevant agencies. The bandits ,emboldened by the impunity of their acts have constituted themselves into groups of untouchables that pose a threat to the Nigerian . They have taken delight in kidnapping the weathy and their family members for ransom ,later traditional rulers and their family members, a recent example is the case of the emir of Gobir who was cold bloodedly murdered without waiting for the ransom to be paid.
So when next you want to disregard an advice from T Y Danjuma remember that a young man joined the army with dedication to his country and some years later got his shoulders shackled with leadership which he could not shirk.
A man that could best be seen ,thought about,loved ,probably understood but never overlooked in the Nigerian political spectrum. A soldiers soldier ,a leader of men and non compromising and no nonense officer and gentleman. General TY Danjuma was born at a timely moment in Nigerian history to save the country from a nightmare that put his life in Peril several times. Undaunted he survived to a matured age. From his youthful years in the sixties to the twenties.
His story today is that of philanthrophy;; building roads ,promoting education,running into billions of naira of charity projecct
T Y Danjuma,an unpretentious ,stern and “difficult ” man does not suffer fools. Somebody once said,his encounter with the general was swift when he was a minister. The general said ” have seat”and immediately said”can I help you?.The flustered young sneered to the affirmative and was ushered out and his proposal at glance. The general never asked any questions after a perusal of the technical details involved.
T Y Danjuma is an enigma. A man hard to decipher,difficult to interpreted ,but when the man says ” you are walking into a land mine”,heed his warning ,he has been there before and knows the signs. To be fore warned is to be fore armed.
Kushi writes in from primetime harvesters valley farms.
